Japanese Maples in Your Garden
Every fall I am once again surprised, sometimes shocked, at the color and magnificence of Japanese maples across the urban landscape, as their leaves turn scarlet, crimson or bronze in preparation for winter. Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum – momiji in Japanese) is a deciduous tree, to 20 feet high, native to the mountains of Japan. Numerous cultivars (Sunset’s Western Garden Book lists 15 ) provide a banquet of choices for the home gardener, from delicate, deeply lobed leaves on dwarf varieties to broad-fingered leaves on shapely shade trees. Many-stemmed with graceful branching structures, some have crimson leaves in spring and fall that turn green during summer. Others are shades of red all year long. Lots to choose from!
SELECTING JAPANESE MAPLES FOR YOUR GARDEN
The first step is deciding how your maple will fit into your garden design. Japanese maples prefer sunlight but protection from dry winds, and require water but excellent drainage. If used as a specimen, give the tree space to grow. In a corner, three medium trees, as a small, shady grove, will limit what else you can grow under them. A dwarf, weeping maple can flow down a bank, or lean over a pond. Maples do well in containers, for a while. I had one in a large pot for 15 years. Once planted in the garden, it quickly became an elegant tree.
Selecting for leaf color and leaf shape can be helped by doing a little homework—that is, by looking at maples in other gardens, and by visiting nurseries when maples are in leaf. Then consult a reference such as Sunset’s Western Garden Book. Select from a reliable nursery. I not only found my maples at Momiji, a Japanese maple nursery in Sebastopol, but I learned from Sachiko Umehora how to care for them.
HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR JAPANESE MAPLE
The climate and soil of Marin County is well suited to growing Japanese maples. To insure good drainage, amend the soil of the planting area with compost or peatmoss. Water regularly. Because maples have a large canopy of leaves, they need a fair amount of water, especially during summer months. Maples have surface roots and should not dry out. Fertilize gently once or twice a year. How much or how often depends on what else is growing under your trees, and how quickly you want them to grow.
Pruning: Prune young trees to shape them and control their growth. In pruning Japanese maples, it is critical to cut back twigs and branches all the way to where they emerge from larger branches. You can be fairly ruthless in this. Do not prune by cutting back the canopy. Prune to remove center growth, to open windows through which to see the trunks. I like to leave horizontal branches where possible, as this is typical of Japanese gardens. Prune in late fall or winter, before the trees’ sap begins to rise. I prune at least twice a year, to prevent too great a shock to the plant. Be sure to leave sufficient canopy to shade the trunk, which can get sunburned in summer.
REWARDS
Japanese maples are four-season trees. The graceful branching of the bare trunks in winter has its own spareness, a relief from the lushness of summer’s foliage. In spring, maples produce tiny, red leaf-shoots, and then are incredibly delicate and lacy as they slowly leaf out. Summer is a bonanza of lush, shady green or upright dark red. Fall is their glory time—a few weeks of stunning color. If your trees receive afternoon sun, the resulting color is like a stained glass window.